This was a re-read. I was near a used bookstore and (apparently) in the mood for the kind of visceral, tear your heart and innards out, poetry Olds excels at. She was at NYU the same time I was (her as faculty, me as grad student) so I’ve seen her a read a few times (including poems from this book). I don’t know that I can recommend that: these are the kind of very intense, super personal, definitely biographic FEELING whether they are or not (along the lines of “diary exposing”), poems that…well, you have to be prepared for it. I’d rather read this kind of poetry alone! 🙂

Very unusual stories. Heavily science- and math-based sci fi (Dad, I think you’re going to want to borrow this) that in some stories felt a bit beyond my grasp, theoretically. (Fortunately the characters keep you involved, even when their minds are on a different plane than yours.) Not necessarily futuristic, although sometimes a touch of it. But not fantastical (along the lines of, say George Saunders); even the wildest ones feel like they COULD be happening.

I remain blissfully unaware of radio in general and NPR in particular so although I had heard vague murmurings about Vowell, I had no personal experience with her prior to reading this book.

Very entertaining, packed full of pop culture references, and prescient in its political discussions. But you already knew that didn’t you? I am always behind the times. 😉

An undertaker, and a detective, and an unidentified body, and a young lost girl coming around. While there is murder and mayhem around, this book has a very, very calm feel. A heavy outer calm lying over turbulent feelings and actions and a thick, almost humid layer of emotion. Clara, I’m rooting for you.

I thought it was a very impressive first novel.

The follow-up to City of Bones. The kickin-ass part of the action expands a bit here and more characters come into play. The lie I’m perturbed by from the first book continues; I’m even MORE sure it’s a lie now. WHEN IS THE NEXT ONE COMING OUT? I’m not sure I can wait! 🙂

A non-vampire book about a world where magic exists all ’round. I really loved the imagery, particularly the “tattoos” Allie gets with the power. It had a bit more romance than some of your typical magic genre books /fans face/ and I’ll probably seek out the follow-ups. But it didn’t engage me quite as much as the Cassandra Clare book (one of which I’ve told you about so far (about to tell you about another one!)).

Reminiscent of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle. A clockmaker’s apprentice is visited by an angel and told the planet is winding down unless he can rewind the “Mainspring”. And off on adventures he winds up going. There’s a flying Navy (reminiscent of the Naomi Novik books but without dragons), and a lot of watch/clock imagery going on. I liked it, but I felt it wandered about and here, a month and a half later, when I flip through the end pages, I can’t quite recall some of the characters in the final chapters.

Another collection of his “what I read vs. what I bought” essays for The Believer (yes, the very essays I refer to every month when I show you my lists! albeit without commentary).

I always find these fun (see here for one I read last year). I also find they are dangerous because I always wind up adding to my “something I should read” someday lists, which are dangerous things for a person with my shall we call them “spending propensities” when she walks by a million bookstores every day. Dangerous!

Just a little reminder to myself to go pick up “Skellig” by David Almond, apparently voted the third greatest children’s book of the last seventy years. Here’s what Hornby had to say: “I can tell you that it’s one of the best novels published in the last decade, and I’d never heard of it. Have you?”